


Pondwater

by noconceptoflife



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Pining, Unrequited Crush, post season 12 pre season 13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2017-03-09
Packaged: 2018-10-01 11:27:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10188935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noconceptoflife/pseuds/noconceptoflife
Summary: There's a war and it's any day things can go south or turn out for the worst. Any moment might be the one where things truly go to hell and Wash knows that a few soldiers might make or break their odds.Tucker thinks that it's a great day to leave everything behind and spend a day relaxing. Wash is not a weak man, but he is weak for Tucker.





	

Wash knows that it was just a day or two long mission, and that Tucker would be driving them. It didn’t need stealth, or special help, so Wash wasn’t really sure why he was the one who ended up being picked.

“Man, you’re like the only one I trust to have my back.” Tucker had said in reply, which had been enough to make Wash shut up, because who was he to argue with that? Kimball had just repeated that it was a simple job that only needed the two of them, and that Tucker had been bugging her about it until she agreed. Wash assumed it had something to do with the merc area they had cleaned out the day before and Tucker was feeling paranoid about going back. And if he was being honest with himself, he wasn’t going to turn down a day spent with just Tucker. Odds were he would be hoarse from shouting and red-faced with anger, but it would still be time that he wants.

He should have questioned it once they were driving for more than an hour, going into the cooler parts of Chorus where it was grass and a few sparse trees.

“What’s important about this place?” Wash asks when they finally stopped. It was a large pond, with a grove of trees near that, and open grassland around them.

“Nothing at all.” Tucker says happily as Tucker hops out of the warthog. He takes the keys in his hand. Tucker's arm winds back, and the keys are flung into the pond with all of Tucker's might to land in the middle of the small body of water.

“What the hell!” Wash shouts immediately, getting out to scramble after the man, but it was too late to do anything. He watches it sink into the pond with fury curling in his stomach.

“Unless you’re gonna go get it, we’re stuck here.” Tucker announces. “Now, you’re going to have a nice long day to relax, or you can just go get that and we can drive back.”

Wash is speechless, but then he isn't. His voice brakes with how loud his shouting is. “Are you telling me that you wasted my time to come out here because you think I need to relax?”

“Yup!” Tucker said, and reaches up to pop his helmet off. That is when Wash’s defenses drop. Not all the way, but just enough to listen to the rest of what Tucker has to say. “I brought food, regular clothes, and some towels too. You need to chill and you’re not getting it back in the capitol.”

“I have people to train!” Wash argued. He was a little distracted by Tucker unsnapping the clasps of his chest piece and pulling it off. He wasn’t about to break focus, though.

“Carolina is taking that over today, you don’t need to worry about not being able to abuse your cadets.” Tucker says as he worked at pulling his gauntlets off. The aqua soldier circles around the warthog, and Wash follows him.

“Who even authorized you to waste my time with this? Does anyone know where we are?” Washington asks with nearly another shriek. Tucker peeling himself out of the rest of his armor is met without a flinch. This won't get to him, he knows.

“Kimball, Simmons, and Grif all know where we are.” Tucker says. “Kimball agreed when I said you needed to have a day to yourself.” He finishes, leaving no room for argument.

That surprised Wash. He didn’t react when Tucker started unzipping his undersuit. Tucker loves going commando, so Wash turns away for a moment while Tucker shuffles around some more to get ready for whatever foolish idea he has planned.

“You should take your armor off too.” Tucker says. Wash turns his attention back to the other soldier. The younger man is dressed in a tee shirt and shorts, which Wash assumes he wore under his armor. It looks so casual. Tucker’s biggest scars and his Sangheli tattoos were covered up, and Wash thinks for a moment about how he looks like a regular civilian. No one in Chorus goes around without their military issued armor for their own safety. A bullet from military grade guns would cut through flesh like butter, with how they had been made to pierce armor. 

Wash hesitantly reaches up to unclasp his helmet. He usually only takes his armor off when taking a shower. He even sleeps in it. It isn’t uncomfortable exactly, but he feels too exposed without his armor. He pulls his helmet off and Tucker grins at him in victory, all white teeth and a raw kind of joy that breaks Wash’s resolve.

The yearning is so strong, but Wash is used to it by now. It was always nice to think about. Tucker was selfish, he knew. Tucker wouldn’t give an inch of himself if he thought he wouldn’t get anything in return. Yet Wash felt like he had given Tucker an inch and in return he had been given a mile. Tucker was no mystery, he knew what was on the man’s file and what Tucker had told him. Tucker was an open book, and Wash was tightly sealed and encrypted.

Their armor is in a mixed up pile by the time they’re done. Tucker lost his shirt in the process, which Wash doesn’t really question anymore. It broke the illusion of being a normal civilian with the long scar from Junior’s birth and the still pink-red scar from Felix trying to kill Tucker. Tucker’s Sangheli tattoos look almost white in the sunlight.

Chorus is more cool and wet than most planets that Wash knows. Most of it is either jungle or Ice, but these belts of grass and occasional waters are just as pretty as the rest of the world. Currently the weather is pleasantly cool, and he shivers, but the sun shines down on them and makes them warm.

Wash isn’t as confident in his naked skin as Tucker is. Tucker’s dark brown skin shows scars more clearly, but there aren’t many to count. He sat up on the towel he has while Tucker laid on his face-down. Just from where he was watching Tucker breathing he could see so many different places where he might lay his hand spread out and not touch any scar tissue.

Wash’s own scars feel tight, but he was startled out of those thoughts as Tucker rolled over onto his back. “See, isn’t this nice?” He said. “I just had basic rations packed, but we’re not going back until the sun is down, get it?”

Wash thinks that yes, this is nice. The wind feels so strange on his skin, even when it’s just through his clothes. “Yeah, I get it.” He says.

Tucker laughs. His laugh doesn’t change with any situation. He’s never heard Tucker laugh any other way than that laugh he always does. In some situations it’s enough to make him want to tear his own hear out with how infuriating it is. In some situations it’s enough to make Wash grin in his own helmet, grin like he can’t remember grinning in a long time.

Some nights when Wash turns in and Tucker stays up late, Tucker’s laugh will echo through the halls and Wash will hear it at its faintest, and something deep inside of him aches. Tucker’s laugh isn’t meant to be faint.

“Why you lookin’ so serious?” Tucker teases. “Come on, relaxing time. Nap in the sunlight, let’s go.” Tucker says and reaches out to tug on Wash’s arm. Tucker’s fingers are warm from the sun and he goes down to lay back on the towel.

His thoughts should be about how exposed they are, but Wash just thinks about the sound of the wind in the grass. The the feel of the sun in his hair is nice, too, something he’s not used to. He can’t drift off, he’s too trained to not relax, but he does close his eyes. He lets time get away from him, something he would normally never stand for. He still focusses on something to keep him tethered to wakefulness, and he picks the sound of Tucker’s breathing.

Tucker ‘wakes up’ eventually, and Wash fakes sleep. He hears a light giggle from Tucker, and then some kind of swishing sound.

He’s startled up by a handful of water to his torso. He should shout, that’s what Tucker expects, but he doesn’t. Instead he grumbles, and peels his shirt off with carefulness to not ruin it or rub the water over his hair. He hopes that he’s right when he thinks that Tucker’s eyes roam over him. 

Tucker drops a package of food into his lap that he recognized form the mess hall. The food is simple and filling, and better than what Wash ate with the army before Chorus, and even Freelancer.

Tucker talks about food while he eats. “Man, back when I was a kid, you know what was my jam? I fucking loved peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches.”

“Peanut butter and marshmallow?” Wash asks with a raised eyebrow.

“Holy shit, yes. You can either take regular marshmallow and melt them or just get a jar of fluff. You get the shit, spread it on some bread. Not rocket science. There isn’t much I wouldn’t do if you told me I could get a peanut butter and fluff sandwich.” Tucker says. “What about you? What was like, your go-to snack thing?”

Wash thinks. “Not really. I was a military kid, I’ve been eating rations for my whole life.”

Tucker looks like Wash has just said something blasphemous. “Jesus Christ dude, really? Like, those shitty freeze-dried government ordered things in those little boxes?” He said.

Wash is surprised. “You know what they look like?” He asked.

“Yeah, you could get three for a dollar. I ate them sometimes when I was away from home. I tried getting the one that tastes like apple pie-“

“Oh hey, that one’s my favorite.”

“-but it just tasted like sweetened pancake batter.” Tucker finishes off his meal. Chorus doesn’t have ration boxes like earth or the military outposts that Wash grew up on. They actually cook their food, though bland food would be bad for morale.

Wash wrinkles his nose at Tucker, and the man just laughs. “On the bright side, I’ve been able to grow my hair out again. Man, I regret cutting my dreads off. It took me twelve years to grow them out to the point where they were at. They’re a bitch to grow at first, too.”

Wash has no idea what to say to that, with his straight blond-grey hair. It would probably just look like a dead houseplant if he tried to do anything to it other than what would involve a comb and gel. “That’s good for you.” He says.

Tucker nods and gathers up their empty boxes of food and dumps them into the back of the warthog. He climbs in the back for a moment, and Wash wants to go see what he’s doing. He ends up just staying on the ground on the towel and watches Tucker’s back, covered in the hard geometric designs of the Sangheli tattoos.

Tucker throws another towel at him, and Washington catches it easily. “What’s this for?”

“That’s for me.” Tucker says and then hops out of the warthog again, bare feet landing on soft, dry grass.

Before Wash knows it, they’re both in the water. The middle of the pond is only about as twice as deep as Wash is tall, and Tucker likes catching Wash off guard and splashing water into his face. Washington isn’t really off guard, but he lets Tucker do it anyways. Tucker isn’t weak, Wash knows. He’s strong as hell, but he chooses to slack and not care and goof off and it is infuriating how Wash can see all of that potential but have nothing come of it.

He also knows that Tucker’s choice to not be the best would have probably helped out a lot of people. His mind strays to the freelancers and how they had all been killing themselves to be the best. Does that make Tucker better than them? No, but maybe it makes him more realistic and human.

He catches another face-full of water, then he just ducks under and swims down as Tucker bobs above him. Something bright catches his eye, and his hand dips into the silty mud at the bottom and comes up with the keys to the warthog.

Kicking up from the bottom of the pond, he clutches the keys in his hand and spits water when he comes up. 

Tucker’s all smiles and laughter, and Wash feels warmer than he has in a long time, even in the cool water. “Come on man, I’ll go easy on you from now on. Bow chicka bow wow.”

Wash lets the keys slip from his fingers and fall back to the bottom of the pond as he lunges towards Tucker, shoving him under the water with wild abandon, letting out a laugh of his own. Maybe Tucker was right and Wash just needed some time to relax with the man that he loved. They could go back later that night, with Wash’s heart feeling a little lighter.


End file.
